


Fine and Mellow

by bibliothekara



Series: NCIS/CM Crossovers [2]
Category: Criminal Minds, NCIS
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliothekara/pseuds/bibliothekara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim and Emily run into each other again on a cold winter's night, after a tough summer and a cruel autumn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine and Mellow

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after CM 5x10, and sometime after NCIS 7x09.
> 
> a) Written for my lovely and talented muse, [](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/profile)[**melliyna**](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/) , who wanted more crossover.  
>  b) A sequel to my first NCIS/CM crossover, "Don't Run With Scissors.", except with MOAR angst and some schmoop. So go read that first.  
> c) Title is from the Billie Holiday song.

*******

  
If it hadn't been for Rich briefly being unable to find the Seagram's, Tim McGee wouldn't even have spotted her. The Garrett's bartender had gone in the back room, leaving Tim to stare at that ugly bird clock above the whiskey. He had voted verbally for its removal once before, but Rich seemed to adore it. And he claimed that a lot of patrons did too, a claim that McGee's investigator senses found to be dubious.

He couldn't stare at the ugly clock any longer, and so he scanned up and down the bar. And there she was. There were a lot of women of her type around DC, but Tim would have spotted the memorable combination of dark long hair, prominent nose, and pale skin anywhere. She had cut off her bangs since he'd seen her last, though.

He marveled to think that that had been seven whole months ago. Before Ziva, before Somalia...before a whole lot of things. And 7 months was a lot of time in BAU-land, too, he'd bet. She probably wouldn't even remember him, he reasoned, as he received his drink, and returned to join Tony and Abby at their table.

But Tim kept half an eye on Emily Prentiss as the night wound down. She seemed...what would be the word, darker then when they'd met. The spark in her eyes, that had been obvious, was now obviously muted.

Oh, good, she wasn't alone; Gibbs's old friend Rossi sat down next to her within a few minutes. But it seemed like a pretty serious conversation; with Rossi doing the lion's share of the talking. (Not exactly a surprise, according to Gibbs.)

"Hey, McGollum, you with us? Or are you too busy staring at your precious over there?"

McGee brought his attention back to his table-mates. He thought a minute. And then he smiled.

"Tony, was I hallucinating or did you just make a Lord of The Rings reference?"

"Well, Elf-Lord, obviously you were hallu-, I mean I would never...oh all right, Abby dragged me to one of them back when they were in the theaters. Damn it, woman."

Tony playfully swatted Abby on the shoulder to punctuate this, and Abby returned the gesture.

"It was part of your cultural education, Tony, which I do not regret one bit."

She took a swig of her remarkably frou-frou drink, and then looked up at Tim again.

"So who is she, Timmy? " Tim inwardly thanked Abby for sounding as neutral as she possibly could.

So of course Tony had to ruin the moment by taking hold of the conversation.

" 'She', Abigail, is FBI Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss, member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit" (he pronounced that part incredibly precisely) “and completely out of his league."

He didn’t know whether Emily knew, or whether it was just the universe, for once, working on the side of one Timothy McGee. But at that exact moment, Rich appeared at their side with a tray of drinks.

“One pina-colada for Miss Sciutto, one Dogfish Head IPA for Agent DiNozzo, and one Seagram’s and tonic for ‘Tim’ ” (Rich exaggeratedly emphasized that bit) “ all courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Abby was smiling, and Tony was absolutely speechless, as Tim looked carefully back toward the bar. She was back in conversation with Rossi, but seemed to feel Tim’s incredulous gaze, as she turned, and smiled shyly at their table.

Wait a minute, scratch that. At -him-. Tim’s years of geek-experience were impossible to subdue, as he reflexively looked behind him to see who else in the world she could be smiling at.

This, for the first time that evening, made Emily crack up, and Rossi, who had been attempting to keep his peace before, started laughing as well. He raised his glass to their table in a mock toast.

Tim beamed, and turned back to his friends.

Abby was smiling as well, and Tony looked somewhere between bewildered and flustered.

“Okay, maybe not completely.”

******************

The evening had gotten later, and Tony had decided to head home. Abby followed a little while after, giving Tim a hug and a sotto voce “behave.”

But years of boyhood teasing, and not especially great luck in practical experience, had left Tim a little gun-shy in this area. He looked over again, and noted that SSA Rossi seemed to have retreated home as well. There was an old Billie Holiday tune playing on the vintage jukebox. (Rich loved that thing, and had probably repaired it about 9 times since Tim had started counting.)

 _Ah, what the heck_  
, thought Tim.  
 _At the very least, she’ll be fun to talk to._  
He had learned from her teammate Morgan, during the case in May, that Emily was kind of a closet geek. Vonnegut and old science fiction especially.

Somehow during that inner monologue, Tim’s rebellious legs had motored him over towards the bar. He sat down next to Emily, who was staring off into space, through the bottle of Jack behind the bar.

“I swear to God, Tony’s mouth didn’t close completely for the next 10 minutes. You, SSA Prentiss, have excellent timing.”

That seemed to rouse her out of her torpor, and she started to smile again.

“I hoped so. But it was really Rossi’s idea.”

“Rossi the instigator, huh?”

“Yeah, but we love him, ‘cause he’s usually on the side of the angels.”

“That’s what we usually say about Tony, but it’s hard to remember sometimes.”

Somehow, she managed to laugh and grimace at the same time. The woman was kind of a wonder that way.

“That’s a hard thing to remember a lot of times, Tim.” Emily seemed to rethink that sentence while she was saying it. “I can call you Tim, right?”

“Only if I can call you Emily.”

“I think I’d like that.”

The conversation paused, and they simultaneously did the “bashful geek look-away.” Which made them both start to laugh again.

“My god, we’re both qualified federal agents, it should be easier than this,” said Emily in between her laughter.

The woman seemed to be telepathic. “Intelligence on the job , versus intelligence in other places? When you find a way to connect the two, let me know, will you? Because I haven’t found a way yet.”

“You? Come on, a guy like you, intelligent, cute, with a steady job, in a town like DC?”

Tim tried not to, but he started to blush. “With a nickname like McGeek? Just because Tony repeats it ad nauseum doesn’t make it untrue. I’m not used to this kind of stuff. It’s incredibly hard to make the first move. And the job doesn’t make it any easier.” Amanda the Assassin flashed on his consciousness for a moment, and he took a hard swig of his drink.

Emily’s face fell again. “That’s certainly true.” She flicked her gaze over. “Okay, it’s the profiler in me turning on, but you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”

Tim met her eyes. “Yeah, thank you for noticing.”

But that wasn’t what she had meant, and he realized it when it took a minute for her to respond. But she seemed to think better of it. “You look really good, Tim.”

Tim decided, maybe against his better judgment, to answer her original question. “Good to know. Wasn’t all the gym, though.”

“No?”

“It was a busy summer. We spent some time overseas. But it all worked out in the end. ”

Now it was Emily’s turn to take a hard swig of her drink. “Yeah, it’s been a pretty tough summer all around.”

“Everything okay at the BAU? That seemed like a pretty serious conversation you were having with Rossi before.”

As soon as it came out of his mouth, Tim regretted saying it, and Emily’s shocked face looking back at his only confirmed it.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, damn it. I shouldn’t have said that. I swear to god I wasn’t eavesdropping…”

“No, no, it’s okay, really.” Tim had been flailing, somewhat, and so he was surprised to feel her hand on his forearm.

She pulled it back, almost immediately. But Tim was a patient guy, and so he waited until she had gotten up the nerve to speak.

“We just got back from Tennessee. Pretty rough case. We caught the guy…I collared the guy, and I said some things I really shouldn’t have. Some things I regret. And Dave was just talking me through it.”

“It’s not just that, though, is it?”

“What isn’t?”

Maybe it was the gin, maybe it was the late hour, but Tim plunged forward.

“I don’t think I’m much of a profiler. But you are wearing all black. And not just Bureau regulation black.”

“Yeah, funny story….well, BAU funny story, which tend to be pretty messed up; we all went straight to Tennessee from a funeral.” Emily smiled at that, but it wasn’t her usual graceful smile. It was something twisted and dark.

Tim knew enough from experience to not say anything. That Emily would go on when she wanted to.

“We… we just…you remember I mentioned our Unit Chief, when we met?”

Tim searched his memory. “Hotch…Aaron Hotchner…”Mom”, yeah.”

“Well, one of the bastards we hunt went after him. Stabbed him, not enough to kill him, just enough to torture him. And then he went after his ex-wife and his son. We sent them into protective custody, but two weeks ago, he found them.”

“Oh god.”

“Hotch got there in time to save Jack, but Haley…”

“It was her funeral.”

“Yeah. And then we go straight to Nashville, and here’s another one. Another pathetic loser who takes his insecurities and inadequacies out on other people. Just another day on the job for the BAU. And tomorrow, I’ll go back, and there’ll be five new files on my desk.”

Emily ended that sentence by emphatically placing her glass back on the bar. Earning her a resentful look from Rich. She turned her attention back to a quiet Tim.

“You. You and Tony and Gibbs and, what’s her name?”

“Ziva.”

“You’re Major Case Squad, so they call you in whenever there’s a dead Marine, or a dead sailor, or something like that.”

“Yeah.”

“We have a job, you and I, because it doesn’t stop. It never stops. There’s never going to be a day, or a week, when we come in and there’s a light day. You and me, there are no light days.”

“I guess not.”

“So why do we keep going back, Tim?”

Tim looked down, and then looked Emily straight in the eye.

“Because there are no light days. Because this is going to keep happening whether we’re there or not, and better someone _is_ there. Better there’s some kind of balance in this world. “

That seemed to break the tide of Emily’s anger, and she looked down, a tinge of shame on her features.

“Yeah. That’s pretty much what Dave said. I guess it’s just harder to hear some days.”

“I know.”

For some reason, Tim looked back up at the Audobon clock, and saw it was already quarter to midnight. He suddenly felt really tired, and was pretty sure Emily felt the same way.

“You want to share a cab home?”

“Oh I don’t know, I’m way out in Arlington...”

“Fear not, dear lady, that’s on my way. Shall we go find us a white steed?”

That made her giggle, and Tim was gratified. He paid his tab with Rich, and then followed Emily over to the coat-rack.

“Is… _this,_ your jacket, Agent McGee?” She smiled as she pulled the regulation windbreaker off the rack.

“Am I that obvious?”

She smiled wider. “You’re like Hotch. He put on a seer-sucker shirt once; it only made it more obvious that he was a G-man.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as such.”

She looked over at him.

“Thanks for listening to me vent, Tim. I guess I’m not very good company right now.”

Tim screwed up his courage, leaned over, and kissed Emily gently on the lips.

“You’re pretty good.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Tim McGee.”

He helped her on with the rest of her coat, took her hand, and together they exited into the chilly Washington evening.

 **fin**

 ****


End file.
